Many laser radar systems have been built which rely on the transmission of a high energy illuminating pulse. Most often these systems rely on solid state lasers operating in the near infrared with a lasing media of Neodymium-YAG or Erbium doped glass. Many of these systems utilize multiple pulses over a period of time to detect remote objects and improve range accuracy. These systems are often based on a single detector optical receiver. To develop a complete picture of a scene, the laser and optical receiver must be scanned over the field of view, resulting in a shifting positional relationship between objects in motion within the scene. Flash ladar systems overcome this performance shortcoming by detecting the range to all objects in the scene simultaneously upon the event of the flash of the illuminating laser pulse.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,392,747 awarded to Allen and McCormack and assigned to Raytheon, describes an improved scanning ladar, but makes the prediction regarding possible flash ladar systems, “an all digital implementation of a detector array is not possible.” U.S. Pat. No. 7,206,062 awarded to Asbrock, Dietrich, and Linder describes a readout integrated circuit adapted to process ladar return pulses by use of analog circuitry.
The present invention is a flash ladar camera system incorporating elements of the flash ladar technology disclosed in Stettner et al, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,696,577, 6,133,989, 5,629,524, 6,414,746B1, 6,362,482, and U.S. patent application US 2002/0117340 A1, and which provides with a single pulse of light the range to every light reflecting pixel in the field of view of the ladar camera as well as the intensity of the reflected light.